Grace & Truth Church
The Chosen - wk1
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Matthew 22:1–14NLT
- Nothing is impossible with GodHow many of you will throw leftovers or something in the microwave when you are in a hurry? You toss it in, press the buttons to turn it on, then you just stand there and wait for your food to finish. How many of you will watch the numbers count down, but feel like it is taking forever? You know it should only take a minute or two to heat up the left over turkey from thanksgiving, but that minute seems to just drag on.What’s even worse is when it finally beeps and you pull it out to discover that it is still cold, so you have to do it all over again! My uncle Doug got me into making popcorn with a Whirley Pop. It is fun to do, only takes about 5 minutes, and you can make the popcorn taste however you want it. The only problem is that you have to stand over the stove turning the handle to keep stirring the popcorn. That forces you to stare at it and wait for it to finish.Now that we are entering the Christmas season many children will be experiencing this as they try to patiently wait to open Christmas gifts. That tradition is a sort of representation of the waiting that the Israelites did as they hoped for the promised Messiah. For thousands of years the Israelites had been waiting for the Messiah that God had promised. In fact, most scholars agree that by the time Jesus arrives almost 400 years had passed since the last messianic promise had been given by God.God’s people had been waiting and waiting and waiting. We get impatient and anxious when we stand by a microwave and wait for a few seconds, what might they have felt after waiting for generations? Maybe many of them began to feel hopelessness. Especially after so much war, loss, and subjugation by foreign rule.You know they had to be tossing doubt and confusion around in their heads. Maybe these world powers are too much? Maybe the powers beyond this world are too strong? Maybe we’ve sinned too much and we are undeserving? Maybe we just need too many miracles to pull this off?Because the coming of the Messiah was a long time coming, it was easy for God’s people to start to think of it as an impossibility.Let’s look at one of those promises and then we will pray…
Micah 5:1–4 NIV 1 Marshal your troops now, city of troops, for a siege is laid against us. They will strike Israel’s ruler on the cheek with a rod. 2 “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” 3 Therefore Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labor bears a son, and the rest of his brothers return to join the Israelites. 4 He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth.PraySuddenly, God broke the 400 year silence in the most unlikely of places. There was no palace. There was no royal family. No status or wealth. Just two deeply impoverished people with no social or religious merit. Mary, just a teenager, and her future husband, Joseph. To make things seem even more impossible, Mary was and would remain a virgin until after the Messiah was born. God sent angels to speak to them about His plan to bring Jesus to the world through them…Luke 1:30–33 ESV 30 And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”Matthew 1:20–21 ESV 20 But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”What might have gone through their heads? Is this even possible? Does any of it make sense? What would people think? They are to be married, yet Mary is already pregnant! Who would believe Joseph, “I didn’t do it, God did!” It all sounds a little crazy. What about Mary? She had plenty of reasons to be afraid. In the ancient world if Joseph decided to divorce her, even quietly, it would have been as good as leaving her for dead.Despite all of the questions and concerns, Joseph and Mary relentlessly pressed on, believing in the work God said He was going to do. Even when all seemed impossible, they were faithful.Throughout this series we are going to watch a few scenes from the TV series called “The Chosen.” Today I want to show you a clip of Joseph and Mary slowly making their way to Bethlehem. They are making the trip because of a census that is being taken by Rome. This scene is an imagined scene, not a scriptural one, but it shows Joseph and Mary relentlessly pressing on, while also showing some of the questions and concerns that had to be plaguing them. Let’s watch…Chosen Clip #1We are talking about Joseph and Mary relentlessly pressing on. How were they able to do that and continue believing in the work that God said He was going to do? They relentlessly remembered. Just after Mary rehearsed all the reasons Joseph could have left her, Joseph purposefully points to the heavens and simply says, “God told me to.”He remembered there was an authority behind this. The authority. So he pressed on. Soon after, Joseph says with a sigh, “This all seems impossible.” That’s when Mary mirrors his earlier thought as she says, “Yes, yes, but remember what the messenger said to me…” Like Joseph, she remembered that she was called by God Himself via his angel. The authority is behind this. So she pressed on.They didn’t just remember the authority behind their calling either. They also remembered that they were heeding the call of an accomplished authority. They were heeding the call of the God who had a proven track record of accomplishing the impossible.When Joseph said that it all seems impossible, Mary’s full response was, “Yes, yes, but remember what the messenger said to me: nothing is impossible with God.” This statement is a declaration for sure, but it is also an invitation for them to remember the ways God has always been able to accomplish the impossible.Maybe as they would retreat into their thoughts and memories they would remember the stories of how God built a nation from one small family. Or how He set them free from captivity to the most powerful nation in the Ancient Near East through ten plagues and splitting a sea in two.We know one story Mary thought of was that of Abraham and Sarah because she referenced them at the end of the song she wrote just after receiving her message from the angel.By them relentlessly remembering the authority behind their calling and the reliability of our limitless God they were able to stay steadfast and keep walking. They knew…The coming of the Messiah, Jesus, was never to be thought of as an impossibility, because all things had already been proven possible for God.As we reflect on the coming of Jesus to begin to renew and restore a broken and pained world, it is also a time to look ahead to when Jesus will come again to finish the renewing and restorative work He started at Christmas.Just as God promised the Israelites that He was sending a Messiah, Jesus promised that He would return. Just as the Israelites waited for hundreds and even thousands of years, we have been waiting for a couple thousand years. Just like they had no idea when, where, or how, we don’t know either. In fact, in one of His promises to return, Jesus said this…Matthew 24:42–44 NIV 42 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. 43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.When we wait in front of the microwave for our leftovers, we usually know exactly what to expect. We even have a handy count down timer and a loud beep when the predetermined time arrives. Unfortunately, God doesn’t have us in a microwave. In many ways, if we are not careful we can fall into the same concerns and doubts that the Israelites faced about the Messiah.Because the second coming of Jesus has been a long time coming, it’s easy for us to start to think of it as an impossibility.BUT! We can learn from Joseph and Mary. We can relentlessly remember the authority behind our calling and the fact that our God has a track record of accomplishing the impossible. If He never did anything else, He proved Himself as an accomplished authority by sending Jesus as the Messiah once already for all. Because He is the accomplished authority we know…The second coming of Jesus is never to be thought of as an impossibility, because all things have already been proven possible for God.We can do the same thing Joseph and Mary did and be relentless about remembering the wonderful things God has accomplished in the past. The many ways He has fulfilled promises throughout time.Not only do we have the same stories that Joseph and Mary could recall, but we have NEW ones as well! The many miracles that Jesus performed on earth. The amazing stories throughout the New Testament. The story of Jesus’ life, His sacrifice, His death, and, most importantly, His resurrection.We each also have amazing stories from our own lives of God doing impossible things in amazing ways. The testimony of our lives that we can reflect on to remember God’s authority and ability to accomplish the seemingly impossible.As the angel told Mary, which she reflected on in the video…Nothing is impossible with God.This gives us hope. Hope is a confident expectation that nothing is impossible for God, because nothing ever has been.I pray that we can focus on this truth throughout the Christmas season and that it will speak to us over the next month, then the next year, and throughout the rest of our lives until Jesus fulfills His promise to return. My hope is that we can lean on this truth as good times come and go, and as difficult times try to distract us, create doubt, and convince us that we have no hope.Be relentless in remembering that NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD! Micah 5:1–4NLT
Luke 1:30–33NLT
Matthew 1:20–21NLT
Matthew 24:42–44NLT
